January 28, 2013

The Education Department has enacted a crucial reform on behalf of borrowers who become disabled, making it easier for these borrowers to get federal student loans forgiven. The rules now recognize that certain disability findings made by the Social Security Administration will be sufficient grounds to discharge student loans. This will allow some borrowers who are disabled under the SSA rules to avoid a lengthy double review to determine whether they are disabled. When the new system comes into effect, disabled borrowers will be able to submit award letters from SSA. If the award letter shows that the beneficiary is not scheduled for a medical review for at least 60 months, the borrow will be found to have a “long term disability” and will be immediately eligible to discharge federal loans.

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January 9, 2013

The Social Security Administration’s website allows workers to access earnings records. Three times in the past two months, I have review records of individuals who had earnings posted to their account that were incorrect. SSA allows individuals to correct earnings with a form that is also available online. I strongly encourage people to look over their SSA earnings record yearly and compare the SSA figure to the earnings reported to the IRS. The amounts should match. If not, a correction is in order. SSA places times limits on the ability to correct an earnings record, so if you need to make a correction, do so promptly.